Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
29 free or cheap online collaboration software tools for you and your team
Under "fire, pants on", please file my blog post of not two weeks ago, claiming to have seen the light on how to choose online collaboration tools so that you accommodate the least-geeky member of your team. As a philosophy, that lasted for 10 whole days, but as a...
Writing about Motherhood Online
[O]n the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, which liberates you to be a bitch. Not a bitch to others -- ...online mothers' groups are quick to sanction hostility -- but the impatient, imperfect bitch of a mom uses jarred babyfood, disposable diapers and a TV-as...
6 crucial police guidelines for stopping social media vigilantes
Yesterday, Vancouver was treated to the first court appearances by alleged participants in the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots. It was a snapshot of one of the most profound and valuable institutions in our society: a system of justice to which we have collectively delegated...
10 geek gifts for this holiday season
The holiday season sends many of us into the aisles of Best Buy or the Apple Store. We might wander…
How to follow your own principles online
Listen carefully to any twinge of discomfort when you’re online. It’s there to help you learn how to follow your own principles online.
Delete your Klout profile and be more than a Klout score
7 steps to deleting your Klout score, following through on my Harvard Business Review blog post, “The Social Sanity Manifesto”.
Learn to listen online by lurking silently on one social network
Today's practice: Practice your listening skills by choosing one social network where you'll pay active attention, but not actually contribute. My friend Jason Mogus likes to say that we teach what we need to learn. I have long taken this as the single best...
Learning about online graffiti from bathroom graffiti
Today's practice: When you find an online comment or contribution that truly annoys you, put it on your desktop or bulletin board. It's your own personal classroom for learning about difference, and practicing tolerance. When companies, organizations or individuals...
Let your team choose project software for your online collaboration
If you’re a project software or online collaboration geek, you want your team to use your tools. Here’s how to make their tools work for you.
What is an ebook? 6 questions about the future of books
Tonight Emily Carr students presented 5 ebook prototypes developed over the course of this semester in an ebook design course. As the students presented their work, and members of the local business, tech and creative communities responded to them, it was clear that...
The Harvard Business Review
29 free or cheap online collaboration software tools for you and your team
Under "fire, pants on", please file my blog post of not two weeks ago, claiming to have seen the light on how to choose online collaboration tools so that you accommodate the least-geeky member of your team. As a philosophy, that lasted for 10 whole days, but as a...
Writing about Motherhood Online
[O]n the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, which liberates you to be a bitch. Not a bitch to others -- ...online mothers' groups are quick to sanction hostility -- but the impatient, imperfect bitch of a mom uses jarred babyfood, disposable diapers and a TV-as...
6 crucial police guidelines for stopping social media vigilantes
Yesterday, Vancouver was treated to the first court appearances by alleged participants in the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots. It was a snapshot of one of the most profound and valuable institutions in our society: a system of justice to which we have collectively delegated...
10 geek gifts for this holiday season
The holiday season sends many of us into the aisles of Best Buy or the Apple Store. We might wander…
How to follow your own principles online
Listen carefully to any twinge of discomfort when you’re online. It’s there to help you learn how to follow your own principles online.
Delete your Klout profile and be more than a Klout score
7 steps to deleting your Klout score, following through on my Harvard Business Review blog post, “The Social Sanity Manifesto”.
Learn to listen online by lurking silently on one social network
Today's practice: Practice your listening skills by choosing one social network where you'll pay active attention, but not actually contribute. My friend Jason Mogus likes to say that we teach what we need to learn. I have long taken this as the single best...
Learning about online graffiti from bathroom graffiti
Today's practice: When you find an online comment or contribution that truly annoys you, put it on your desktop or bulletin board. It's your own personal classroom for learning about difference, and practicing tolerance. When companies, organizations or individuals...
Let your team choose project software for your online collaboration
If you’re a project software or online collaboration geek, you want your team to use your tools. Here’s how to make their tools work for you.
What is an ebook? 6 questions about the future of books
Tonight Emily Carr students presented 5 ebook prototypes developed over the course of this semester in an ebook design course. As the students presented their work, and members of the local business, tech and creative communities responded to them, it was clear that...
OneZero
SinglesMob: An app for turning parties into mixers
Envisioning an app that lets you blast your single friends with the news that you are at a party with a lot of single guys (and not enough women) or vice versa.
Take these ideas…please
For the next month, I’m committed to sharing almost every one of my ideas — no matter how valuable, and no matter how terrible.
A bird’s eye view of hashtag diffusion
What's it like to be on a panel with rock stars Peter Shankman, Julien Smith, Chris Brogan and Russell Bowers? For all who have wondered, I can answer that question with a video -- at the same time, answering a question that came in on Twitter during today's panel at...
Help your kids learn with Etsy and the Maker Faire
Tonight Little Sweetie was thrilled to learn that she has been accepted into the Vancouver Maker Faire, a DIY festival we attended last year. She loved it, and immediately wanted to run her own booth, based on her Etsy store, 2 Dots 1 Symbol, which sells emoticon...
Tx is short for f*** you, not thank you
Today's practice: Write your thank yous instead of abbreviating them. Last night, I caught myself on the verge of a profound etiquette violation. A colleague had replied quickly and helpfully to an email I had sent, asking for information, and my breezy reply ended...
Meet Your Pinterest Customer
Pinterest is the social media darling of the month, growing madly and reported to be driving more traffic to third-party…
Stop blaming yourself for your kids’ challenges
Today's practice: Focus on healing your kids, not on figuring out how you've damaged them. In the past year a number of very important and dear people in our lives have started or grown their families in a way not everybody knows is possible: by adopting kids who have...
5 essential steps to online security
Today's practice: Tighten your online security. You'd think that writing a dissertation about political computer hacking would make a girl sensitive to the challenges of online security. And it has, up to a point. But I recently decided to up my level of tech...
JSTOR DAILY
SinglesMob: An app for turning parties into mixers
Envisioning an app that lets you blast your single friends with the news that you are at a party with a lot of single guys (and not enough women) or vice versa.
Take these ideas…please
For the next month, I’m committed to sharing almost every one of my ideas — no matter how valuable, and no matter how terrible.
A bird’s eye view of hashtag diffusion
What's it like to be on a panel with rock stars Peter Shankman, Julien Smith, Chris Brogan and Russell Bowers? For all who have wondered, I can answer that question with a video -- at the same time, answering a question that came in on Twitter during today's panel at...
Help your kids learn with Etsy and the Maker Faire
Tonight Little Sweetie was thrilled to learn that she has been accepted into the Vancouver Maker Faire, a DIY festival we attended last year. She loved it, and immediately wanted to run her own booth, based on her Etsy store, 2 Dots 1 Symbol, which sells emoticon...
Tx is short for f*** you, not thank you
Today's practice: Write your thank yous instead of abbreviating them. Last night, I caught myself on the verge of a profound etiquette violation. A colleague had replied quickly and helpfully to an email I had sent, asking for information, and my breezy reply ended...
Meet Your Pinterest Customer
Pinterest is the social media darling of the month, growing madly and reported to be driving more traffic to third-party…
Stop blaming yourself for your kids’ challenges
Today's practice: Focus on healing your kids, not on figuring out how you've damaged them. In the past year a number of very important and dear people in our lives have started or grown their families in a way not everybody knows is possible: by adopting kids who have...
5 essential steps to online security
Today's practice: Tighten your online security. You'd think that writing a dissertation about political computer hacking would make a girl sensitive to the challenges of online security. And it has, up to a point. But I recently decided to up my level of tech...
THE VERGE
Dystopian fiction: What to read when you want to worry
My latest post for JSTOR Daily looks at the value of dystopian fiction to those of us trying to navigate a complicated digital world and an even more confusing future. The post mentions many of my favorite dystopian reads, so I thought I would offer a handy list of...
Why Small Businesses Are Getting LinkedIn Wrong
This piece for The Wall Street Journal’s Report on Small Business looks at the most common mistakes small businesses make on LinkedIn, and how they can do better.
Wanted: A quantified child app for helping special needs kids
When you've got a special needs kid, you're often trying successive strategies or interventions to help your kid develop new emotional, cognitive or behavioral skills. But if you're also on the roller coaster of living with a challenging kid, it can be really hard to...
How to lock your kids out of every device
I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on hacktivism: politically-motivated computer hacking. Interviewing fifty politically engaged computer hackers turned out to be great preparation for running a business that built nonprofit online communities, because I really know how to speak...